


jonquil; return my affection

by stardustupinlights



Series: put your hand inside of mine [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Flower meanings, Hand Jobs, M/M, Public Hand Jobs, Romance, VR Sex, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 09:37:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17784983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustupinlights/pseuds/stardustupinlights
Summary: Link VRAINS is hosting a Valentine’s Day event and Yusaku absolutely hates it.Not only does he have to suffer through the notification rings of all the players that are sending him emojis every five seconds, but also wait in an empty church for Revolver to arrive with whatever news he has. Why did he even insist on meeting on Valentine's Day, anyways? Yusaku has a feeling he's going to regret ever getting up from his bed.(In the end, he doesn't.)





	jonquil; return my affection

**Author's Note:**

> So, I forgot that Valentine's Day was a thing... Oops? I wrote this last night because I wanted to do something to celebrate the day, and I got a bit carried away with the idea. I hope you like it, and Happy Valentine's Day! 💖💕
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT 31/03/2019: As of this date, this work is now beta-ed by lovely Celepom! It's never too late to fix mistakes. Thank you for the effort you put into this, I really appreciate it since I love this one-shot. If you're an old reader, give it a try, if you're new, please enjoy!!

Link VRAINS is hosting a Valentine’s Day event and Yusaku absolutely hates it.

Not only was the update so heavy he had to leave his Duel Disk at home plugged into his computer for it to properly download for a few hours the previous day – and _oh, was he regretting keeping it old school now_ – but the added features were going to kill him. Apparently, someone at SOL Technologies thought it would be a great idea to allow duelists to send emojis to each other regardless of the privacy settings on the account, so everyone could express their love for any player without hitting a display sign that read _‘this player’s Direct Messages are disabled.’_

This, of course, meant hell for every single moderately famous player, and Playmaker was no exception. From the second he logged in his DM’s have been pinging without pause because of the number of players that have taken the chance to contact him now that his mailbox isn’t set to private. _Thankfully_ none of his personal information, like his email and age, is available to the public. But this is hardly a relief when he can’t even open his mouth without being interrupted by the incessant chiming in his ear. He tried to mute them, but SOL deleted that option because apparently they hate people as much as Yusaku does. And if he set them to vibrate it was even worse because his avatar would pretty much hum with the frequency of the messages. Yusaku could at least turn down the volume of the notifications, even if it was only marginally better than the full sound. His Link Sense sending a tingle down his spine every time he’s about to get a message doesn’t help either.

Soulburner was suffering too.

“I don’t think we’ll get anything done like this,” he grimaces, jumping every couple of seconds as he feels the vibrations of the DM’s. He said he preferred the vibrations over the noise, and Yusaku could understand _why_ but he also didn’t want to end up in a fail compilation if the vibrations happened to make them fall off their D-Boards. “Blue Maiden won’t even be able to come because of her Blue Angel obligations and Ghost Girl ditched us for a job! _Why_ are we even still here!?”

“I’m sure that Revolver won’t have much to say,” Yusaku shakes his head, resisting the urge to pull out his hair as another _‘ding!’_ in his ear lets him know he got another message. They were waiting in a well-secluded zone in Link VRAINS that looked like an abandoned church, similar to the one Yusaku got trapped in by Zaizen Akira back when Blue Angel fell victim to the Another virus, but much bigger, with several floors of space and rooms. They are as far as possible from the crowds of adoring fans that would probably jump them the moment they caught wind of them being online – and thank fuck SOL didn’t dare disable the online status options – but it was only a matter of time before the scheduled events began and they would have to look for another hiding place. The sewers with the data monsters sounded great right about now if only Revolver would actually show up. “We’ll log out as soon as we’re done.”

This does nothing to sooth Soulburner’s worries. “I read a few DM’s and they’re _scary_ , Playmaker. Scary.”

“That’s fanaticism for you, Soulburner,” Flame chimes in, crossing his arms. Seeing as they’re still connected to their Duel Disks, Ai and Flame probably have access to their DM’s and most likely read a few out of curiosity, if the perturbed furrow of Flame’s brow counts for anything. “I’m very conflicted over how people can express such desires through emojis so efficiently.”

“You should see the amount of eggplants Playmaker is receiving!” Ai snickers, looking delighted. It seems that he’s the only one enjoying this situation at all, and it makes Yusaku want to delete him. Then again, he often feels the temptation to do so, so it’s nothing new. “I must say though, most of them are lacking some creativity—”

“No one wants to know what creativity means for you, Ai,” Yusaku interrupts him, feeling like he’s going to actually lose whatever sanity he has left if Ai keeps talking. Turning, Yusaku looks towards the entrance, tapping his foot against the floor in an uncharacteristic show of impatience. What was talking Revolver so long anyway? Wasn’t he the one that insisted on having this meeting on Valentine’s Day despite knowing there might be interference by the other players? “I do wonder what’s taking so long—”

Yusaku gets _very_ rudely interrupted by the doors of the church opening with a bang, making Soulburner jump into the air and take three steps away from him, followed by an unmistakable figure running towards them with latent urgency.

“ _What the fu—_ ” Soulburner starts, but before he can even say another word, Revolver grabs Yusaku by the arm and keeps moving, dragging him behind and almost making him trip over his own feet and fall to the ground. “ _Hey!_ What the actual fuck is going on here! Holy sh—”

The game’s censorship algorithm makes Soulburner’s words sound like a car honk, for other players at least. It’s something SOL believed they were very smart for including in the game because it was an attention-grabbing feature that allowed them to ban players faster, not that it always worked and it _could_ be easily modded, but that’s incompetence for you. Yusaku turns his head just in time to see hundreds of players barge into the church, screaming their names like they will die unless they get to them. Soulburner, panicked, jumps into his D-Board to try and escape, but several other players follow him as he slides out through the main entrance. Revolver is still running for some reason, instead of following Soulburner’s example, and Yusaku is too tired of this day already to do anything but ask _what the hell_ is happening.

“It seems that the Light Ignis thought it would be a nice Valentine’s Day gift to broadcast our location,” Revolver explains, voice ragged, as he takes Yusaku up the stairs to the side of the altar and guides him through several hallways. This church was famously left unfinished a few years ago after a Middle Ages inspired event went wrong. Yusaku has no idea where he can take them to escape the crowd, as there’s only up and unfinished rooms. “I’ve been running for ten minutes, from almost the second I spawned in my usual spot.”

“What’s your plan, then?” Yusaku didn’t question that this was Lighting’s doing, or how he knew they were going to meet today. His character protection firewall should have prevented that, but he didn’t recall feeling it activate. Though, to be fair, the custom chime he slapped on it was similar to the DM notifications, so it’s not far fetched to think he missed it because of his frustration. He’d think about that later though, for now he’d rather just focus on running away from their crazy fans. Because while the Ignis was dangerous so were those who wanted a piece of Playmaker— in different ways. “We could have just followed Soulburner—”

“If we left through the entrance they would have been able to follow us far more easily,” Revolver reasons, leading them up what Yusaku guesses is the staircase that was meant to give them access to the clock tower but instead just ends in an empty space with no textures and untrustworthy flooring. He practically pushes Yusaku through the door in his hurry, which only makes him even more confused about their escape route. He would call this space a roof, because it was as wide and long as the whole expanse of the church. There were some floating wooden planks that were probably meant to be part of the perimeter walls, but were just left scattered about, and the door looked bizarre since was only a square of space among the grey expanse of the floor. Yusaku could hear footsteps approaching worryingly fast, and he was sure the smartest among the bunch would soon be boarding their D-Boards to look for them on the roof. “We need to reduce the amount of people that will follow us, and we need to stick together.”

“Don’t you think being together make us a bigger target?” Yusaku tries to reason, stepping carefully on the floor, wary of the flimsy code possibly giving to his character’s weight. His Link Sense tells him the code should be strong enough to hold, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. “It means that more people will come after us.”

“Some might even think you kidnapped Playmaker!” Ai points out, and Revolver finally turns, his hand still holding Yusaku’s arm firmly. He looks winded, which is understandable if he’s been running since logging in, but his expression is carefully controlled. He completely ignores Ai to lock eyes with Yusaku.

“If we split up, they’ll have a much higher chance of catching us than if we’re together— there’s too many of them, and I don’t doubt that Soulburner must be going through quite the goose chase,” Revolver heaves a sigh, looks down at his Duel Disk, and quickly opens a custom program that allows him to get into the game’s code. Yusaku knows what it is immediately because he uses the same one, and watches as Revolver inputs a code that gives him administrative access to the game’s programming, raising his eyebrows. “This will help us a lot.”

“Hey! I’m here too. I could code that for you!” Ai complains, but they both shush him, Revolver a bit more aggressively than is warranted. It would be faster to have Ai code this for them, but who knows what he will come up with to help them escape. Yusaku certainly didn’t want to be victim of that.

The door behind them bangs with the force of someone crashing into it and they both jump, but before it can be opened, Revolver starts writing into the programming and the wooden material gets replaced by a door akin to those seen on a bank’s safe, lock and all. Yusaku nods his approval as the person behind it groans loudly in confusion and pain.

“What now?” Yusaku requests, willing to follow Revolver’s instructions. It’s clear that all that running gave him time to think about how this would play out, but Yusaku doesn’t expect to see a slight hesitation to his fingers when he starts typing in some more code, his lips tightening uncomfortably. “What’s your plan?”

“You’re not gonna like it, but the only way to escape is to get rid of our avatars.” Revolver isn’t looking at him, but he can tell he doesn’t like the idea at all and he agrees with his assessment: that is an awful idea. The door bangs behind them again, making him swallow nervously.

“You mean logging out?” He asks, voice full of hesitant hope, but the hard look Revolver sends him tells him that isn’t what he meant. “Lighting blocked that as well, didn’t he?”

“What an asshole,” Ai mumbles, crossing his arms, but Revolver continues to ignore his existence. “You guys are such party poopers—”

“Yes, unfortunately. My idea is that we should escape to the main area and get lost in the crowd. Once we’re safe we can work on enabling the logout option,” Revolver explains, still typing, and Yusaku recognizes some of the code as those that control character appearance— he isn’t liking this at all. “Of course, we can’t just show up in the plaza as our avatars because it would make everything worse, so—”

“We have to change them,” Yusaku finishes, and sighs at the nod he gets. “Our handles as well.”

“Obviously—” The door bangs again, and the sounds of people arguing can be heard through it, as well as the footsteps of those who are either giving up or pushing through the crowd to get into a safe place to ride their D-Boards. Yusaku sighs in frustration and then, closing his eyes helplessly, listens to the rest of Revolver’s words. “I don’t have enough time to give us new and drastically different looks. Going for the default option with our real life appearance is the best option.”

“You mean the quickest option,” Ai whispers, but Yusaku is already resigned that this is his life. All he wanted was to have a normal meeting and then go home, but it’s obvious he won’t get to do that for a while. So, with another sigh, Yusaku gestures towards Revolver’s screen, where he’s finished inputting the character modification commands and waiting for his answer to press _‘enter’_ , and nods firmly. Better to bite the bullet by his own will. “You _do_ know I can contact Kusanagi—”

Revolver doesn’t hesitate for even a second before hitting _‘enter,’_ not even at Ai’s words, and Yusaku sees a flash of light coming from him, making him squint, before it stops and suddenly he’s not staring at Revolver, cyber-terrorist extraordinaire, but rather Kogami Ryoken in jeans and a red shirt blinking out the dancing spots that come as a side effect from the avatar change, his handle now displaying the name _‘Asphodel.’_ Which is surprising, because he’s at least sixty-percent sure that’s a flower name. Yusaku looks down his own body to find himself wearing the same sweatpants and hoodie he logged in with, blue socks and all, but it’s his new handle that catches his eye.

_‘Wisteria.’_

“Seriously?” He can’t help but ask, but Ryoken only shrugs at him, non-apologetic. “I guess it’s accurate.”

“C’mon, there’s no time, they might break through any second now—” Ryoken gets interrupted by the door making a pitiful sound and the screams of some duelists beneath them trying to get on their D-Boards despite the massive amounts of people making it hard to spawn the vehicle, which he’s really thankful for. They exchange a look, and materializing his own board, Ryoken says: “That’s our cue.”

Before Yusaku can whip out his own D-Board to follow Ryoken though, an arm is suddenly wrapped around his waist and pulling him in until he’s pressed chest to chest against Ryoken’s body, not an ounce of personal or breathing space left and no time to react appropriately before he’s being forced to step on the D-Board and grab at his forearms to avoid falling over as he takes off into the sky rather violently. He watches with no small amount of satisfaction as the church becomes a speck the more distance they put between them and the building. Several duelists notice this and are quick to point at them and scream, many of them hopping on their D-Boards to follow, making Yusaku groan in frustration.

Ai laughs in his ear as Ryoken accelerates in response to the increased noise underneath them and Yusaku steps closer to keep his balance, wind roaring in his ears and Ryoken’s arm tight and confident around him. He finds himself flushing furiously, but he can’t actually bring himself to be mad about this at all, even if he’s certainly going to try. “What the _hell_ , Ryoken?”

“Relax, I did say that we shouldn’t be apart,” he answers, voice far more casual than it should be considering their situation, and Yusaku turns his head slightly to see a smirk taking over his lips. Ryoken meets his eyes for a second before looking back at their path, the infinite blue of the Link VRAINS sky making them look far brighter than usual, but just as intense. “Or does this make you _nervous_ , _hm_ , Yusaku?”

His heartbeat goes absolutely crazy at the taunt, but if Ryoken notices then Yusaku hopes he chalks it up to the fact that they’re being chased by crazy duelists instead of how tantalizing his voice is; deep and just the right combination of smooth and rough. _Damn_.

“A little warning would have been nice,” he grumbles, mentally shrugging off his distracting thoughts, and then turns back to look at where they came from. A few players are struggling to follow them in the distance, clearly not used to riding the wind like Revolver is, but it makes anxiety rise in his throat— for the first time, Yusaku worries that Playmaker looks way too much like him and that people will be able to tell who he is through Ryoken’s precautions. He keeps his eyes trained on them, determined to not lose sight of them. “I’ll keep track of the ones following us, you find a good spot to land.”

“Sure. Any suggestions for where to hide once we get rid of them?” Ryoken asks, back to his serious voice, right next to his ear. Yusaku almost closes his eyes with a helpless sigh, but the players chasing them have him worried enough to not give into the impulse.

“A candy shop!” Ai suggests, and Yusaku shushes him again. “Honestly, cheer up you two!”

“The sewers— I heard players are still scared of them in this new Link VRAINS because Ghost Girl was trading information about the events leading up to the Tower of Hanoi and it got twisted into urban legends,” Yusaku says, ignoring Ai and the little chuckle against his ear Ryoken makes at him. He needs to stay focused. “They won’t get in there that easily since the entrances are sealed coding, and even if they find another way in, there might be data monsters around to scare them off.”

“As you wish,” Ryoken nods, and then scares the shit out of Yusaku by dipping the board into a sudden nosedive. Ai screams as he holds onto Ryoken for dear life, feeling the muscle shifting and tensing beneath his hands as Ryoken keeps control of the speed and momentum of their fall. Yusaku is far too used to pulling the same tricks on his own board, so he keeps his eyes open and watches for any sign of their chasers copying them only to find none, relieved. Ryoken stops short of the ground, the D-Board sliding forwards a bit with the sudden halt, but they’re barely fazed as they untangle themselves from each other and hop down into the ground, looking around to assess their environment.

Ryoken’s brought them to the central plaza, like he said he would, having them land right next to the fountain, and there’s a disgusting amount of people around celebrating Valentine’s Day. What he guesses must be a healthy mix of long distance and local couples holding hands and giving each other digital presents. The decorations are almost nice, if it wasn’t for the fact that no matter where he looks there’s a giant poster of Blue Angel sitting on top of a red heart, wearing a red and white version of her outfit. Even her hair color was adjusted to match. The fairy lights hanging from all the overhead lights, the red roses mixed with white and red carnations decorating the few patches of ground that make up the gardens, and general theme are fine, since they actually do add to a more romantic atmosphere, but it feels very wrong to have a picture of Zaizen Aoi stare at him at every turn, since he has a feeling her avatar was either borrowed by someone or she forced herself to it. Either way, it was creepy.

“Let’s mingle,” Ryoken suggests, and surprises Yusaku by taking hold of his hand and intertwining their fingers. He barely keeps himself from yelping, but he can’t avoid the heat that rises to his ears. Mercifully, Ryoken is too focused on scanning the crowd to pay Yusaku’s internal freak out any mind. “We need to get to the sewers without coming across anyone.”

Yusaku nods in agreement, but as soon as they take two steps, they get intercepted by a voice that’s _annoyingly_ familiar. _Why_ can’t he just go home, back to his fuzzy socks and bed? He never wanted to be here in the first place.

“Fujiki-kun!” Brave MAX calls from across the fountain, his massive figure peering down at him with curiosity and making several heads turn in their direction. Ryoken’s grip on his hand tightens almost painfully, and this is the moment in which Yusaku decides he wants to die. “I didn’t know you had a Link VRAINS account! Did you keep this from me?”

Yusaku very subtly takes a few nonchalant steps to the left and away from him, but Shima clearly doesn’t care and steps around the fountain stopping right in front of them. As a precaution, Yusaku reaches over with his free hand to mute Ai, just in case he even has the _idea_ to make a comment about this situation. “I’ve only had this account for a week.”

“A week!? Why!?” Brave MAX screams, making even more people notice them. Ryoken clears his throat rather awkwardly, making Shima shift his eyes to look at him. They widen when he realizes they’re holding hands. “And who are you?”

“Eh,” Ryoken starts, seems to reboot very quickly, and then says: “I’m Yusaku’s boyfriend.”

Alarms start to blare inside Yusaku’s head, and he snaps his head to stare at him incredulously while Shima gasps for air, too shocked for words. Ryoken’s only reaction is to squeeze Yusaku’s hand and raise his eyebrows at him pointedly. Yusaku almost grunts in understanding, barely keeping himself from actually doing it because he now gets that Ryoken is doing this as a way to keep up their facade, but really, Yusaku just wants to _go home_.

“Fujiki, you never told me you have a boyfriend!” Shima finally chokes out. Yusaku wishes he truly were choking, and waits for him to close his noise-hole before speaking.

“I’ve only had him for a week, but I already love him,” Yusaku deadpans, and Ryoken takes a breath so deep and so sharp that he also almost chokes, having to cough into his fist to recover. Unfortunately, Yusaku is being completely honest with his words, so in contrast to Shima, he does not wish for Ryoken to actually choke. “It’s a new development. He’s the reason I got the account.”

Shima is at loss for words, and stares blankly at them for a few seconds. “Congratulations?”

“Thanks,” and then, because he’s getting a bit anxious about being out in the open: “I heard Playmaker was online.”

“WHAT!?” Shima screams again, and Yusaku almost flinches while Ryoken clearly does, but he manages to shoot him an approving nod at his ability to deflect the conversation. “Where!?”

The look in Shima’s eye is so wild and frenetic that Yusaku fears for his life. He points in the opposite direction of the sewers and waves his finger around vaguely, watching how Shima tracks the movement, not unlike a dog that just smelled it’s next meal. This metaphor makes him extremely uncomfortable, so he swallows before speaking: “Somewhere over there. I saw him hiding in one of the gift shops. You should hurry if you want to see him.”

“ _Thank you_ , Fujiki-kun! Happy Valentine’s Day!” Shima turns around and runs, the people who were eavesdropping on their conversation following him in a hurry and their chasers from the church arrive just in time to join the fray. Yusaku feels no remorse at the thought of them being very disappointed when they eventually find no trace of Playmaker, imagining blaming each other for losing him until Link VRAINS becomes a Battle Royale and people get banned, but Ryoken starts walking them in the direction of the sewers again, pulling on his hand to get him to hurry, so Yusaku tears his eyes away from the madness, shaking his head mournfully.

“Good decoy,” Ryoken mumbles, keeping his head down. Yusaku shouldn’t need to do the same because his natural hair color couldn’t be more different than Playmaker’s, but he sticks so close to Ryoken’s side that it’s kind of awkward to walk. They’re both too alert and nervous to care. “I know a shortcut to the sewers, here—”

Ryoken takes them into an alley and then down some stairs, leading them through a few more turns before stopping at a fake service entrance to the lower levels that’s just for the aesthetic of the game. Thanks to his Link Sense, Yusaku can tell that the code is definitively sealed, so it will be hard to be followed. With a quick tap to his Duel Disk and some more typing into the game’s code from Ryoken the entrance opens up for them and they drop down quickly. The hole left behind closes after he puts the code back in place. The space is almost identical to how it looked in the old Link VRAINS, with green walls and a river of cache data running downstream, but now there’s a lot less light, which probably means that people don’t really come around to do maintenance that often. No wonder the servers were so awful at times, then. They are in a dead end, the data slipping through a hole in the wall to what Yusaku assumes leads to the other side, but other than that there’s no way out but to the left or back up where they came from.

“So now what?” Yusaku asks, pulling up his Duel Disk to take a look at the news. There was nothing from the official Link VRAINS account on Playmaker except for the usual bounty notice, but it didn’t make him feel any better. Scrolling down, he sees the anonymous tip Lighting must have made with their original location, and it makes him feel anxious about him broadcasting their location once more. “Should we take any other security measures?”

Ryoken shakes his head, looking around the sewers with distaste. “I don’t think so. Coding access into our accounts to logout shouldn't take that long, unless the Light Ignis tries to mess with us again. I don’t think it’ll be able to pinpoint our location like that again, if our firewalls activated. I suspect he was going to teleport us to to the main plaza but couldn’t.”

“I’ll send out some Link Kuribohs to keep watch either way— there might be data monsters around still, considering the state of this place,” Yusaku insists while Ryoken nods and goes back to his screen, already diving into the code as Yusaku summons the Link Kuribohs from his deck. Getting them to actually go is a hassle because they take after Ai’s hyperactive personality, but he comes to an agreement with them easily enough. Glancing at Ryoken, Yusaku pulls up his own program and grants himself administrative access— only for it to be denied. _Uh_. “This can’t be good.”

“What?” Ryoken leans over, takes one look at his screen, and his expression sours significantly. “The Light Ignis must have hacked into SOL after it found out about us escaping. I’ll have to code both of our accounts myself.”

“What about Soulburner’s?” Yusaku reminds him, crossing his arms. “I’m not leaving him behind.”

Ryoken rolls his eyes, looking amused but stressed. It’s not a good look on him, but he would also be pulling faces if he had to take care of three accounts at the same time while there were people chasing them and an Ignis trying to corner them. All in all, Ryoken seems to be taking it pretty well so far. “Don’t worry, I’ll log him out first since he’s the easiest target for the players. Give me ten minutes.”

Satisfied, Yusaku leans against the wall, waiting for the minutes to pass and listening to Ryoken type away with dedication probably just as anxious about logging out as he is. He had almost forgotten about it, but every now and then Yusaku grimaces with the chiming of the DM’s still filling his mailbox. The frequency of them has slowed down, which probably means people either got tired of sending him eggplants and receiving no response, or they were all looking for him right now, and he didn’t know which was worse. The reminder that he still has to suffer through this notification hell does bring a question to his mind that gives him pause, and with as much seriousness as he can muster, Yusaku asks:

“Are you receiving Valentine’s Day DM’s too?” Ryoken’s fingers stop on his keyboard for a second before continuing, but his expression tightens noticeably. “Are you seriously—”

“Yes,” Ryoken snaps, throwing him a quick glare before looking back at his screen. Yusaku can’t believe this. “Apparently, people don’t care if you’re a cyber-terrorist if you, and I quote, _‘can shoot so hard I wouldn't be able to walk for a week.’_ ”

Yusaku snorts, almost choking on his intake of air, and sits down to rest his feet. He would not recommend bringing socks into Link VRAINS, no matter how soft and warm. “How are you getting words? I’m just getting emojis. Lots of eggplants.”

“Perhaps you haven’t looked deeply enough,” Ryoken shrugs, shooting him a confusing look he can't decipher, but then his face morphs into a playful smirk. “Eggplants, really? I was expecting you to be more fixated on the peaches.”

Yusaku blinks, processing his words and then because he’s an idiot blurts out: “I’m gay?”

Ryoken’s fingers pause again, his expression freezing as he looks down to stare at Yusaku. Their eyes meet, and the embarrassment hits him so hard he can feel himself flushing from his chest to his ears in a worryingly fast manner. Ryoken looks bewildered, and it makes Yusaku fidget uncomfortably as he just keeps staring, not typing anymore. Clearing his throat, Ryoken opens and closes his mouth several times, seemingly at lost for words, until he finally comes up with something.

“Same?” His voice is an octave higher when he says it, and Yusaku almost groans from how awkward this is. This interaction will haunt his dreams for years to come, and not even the relief of knowing Ryoken is actually into guys is enough to make him feel better. Ryoken, the dumbass that he is can’t tell that Yusaku is dying and opens his mouth again: “Do you—”

Whatever he was going to say to make this conversation even more painful gets interrupted by the sound of voices echoing down the hallway to his left, and both he and Ryoken snap their heads in that direction in alarm, embarrassment suddenly forgotten.

“I’m telling you, only Playmaker has those kind of Kuribohs—”

“It could be residual data, though—”

“Come on guys, don’t lose hope!” Yusaku immediately recognizes Shima’s voice among them and his mouth drops opens slightly in both disbelief and growing panic, shooting up in his feet. Ryoken steps close behind him to talk in his ear, sounding almost furious and stressed.

“Where the hell are your Kuribohs?” He hisses quietly, typing away at his Duel Disk but this time with growing urgency. Yusaku leans closer to him to watch his progress, and is relieved to find that he’s almost done with Soulburner and using that coding as a template for their own accounts, multitasking between three screens. There’s no way that he’ll manage to log them out in time, though.

“I don’t know. Maybe they fought them or they are somewhere else,” Yusaku shakes his head, frowning. He’s honestly so stupid sometimes. “I shouldn’t have even send those— of course Playmaker fans would know those are his monsters.”

“I agree, I should have seen that problem too. Soulburner is free now,” Ryoken announces, pressing _‘enter’_ , and Yusaku goes to his contact list to check, relieved to find that the little green circle that indicates Soulburner’s online is gone. They have another problem on their hands, though. “Now, we need to leave—”

“Hey, I think I heard something!” One of the voices calls, thankfully not Shima, but they’re extremely close to the dead end in which they are in. Exchanging a nervous look with Ryoken, Yusaku considers his options to get them out of this one; summoning a monster to distract them would be ideal, but he only has his Cyberse deck with him and that would be a dead giveaway, as if the Link Kuribohs already weren’t. Their edited avatars and handles may help them, but then they would have to come up with an excuse to be lurking down here, right next to a data river in a dead end—

“Yusaku,” Ryoken calls, grabbing his wrist and taking a few steps back, dragging him closer to the wall. It occurs to him that Ryoken manhandles him too often, but when he looks for any reason to complain about it he comes up empty. Ryoken leans in closer to meet Yusaku’s eyes, his mouth twisted into a displeased line but his gaze earnest, and Yusaku knows he’s about to suggest something they will probably both regret. “I need you to trust me right now.”

“What?” He asks, confused. This is _not_ the last resort, crazy proposal he was expecting! And they have no time to be talking about _trusting_ each other right now, what with the light of the players’ flashlights starting to get closer to the wall they’re leaning against, their voices becoming louder. They need to get out. “What are you—”

“Trust me,” Ryoken repeats, taking a step closer to him and crowding him against the wall. His eyes are intense, his face dead serious; he looks more like he’s about to deliver some bad news than asking Yusaku to trust him, but it makes something inside his chest tremble. With a sigh, he nods, not fearing whatever Ryoken came up with to get them out of this.

He was, however, not expecting Ryoken to grab his other wrist to bring them both up against the wall and hold them there with an iron grip while simultaneously stepping impossibly close, his nose brushing Yusaku’s and one of his legs slotting itself in between his thighs, forcing them apart. Yusaku has one second to go, very softly, _‘oh’_ , before Ryoken is leaning into that bare inch of space between them that’s left and kissing him.

Yusaku has one startling second of clarity, in which he absolutely freaks out about Ryoken kissing him after just having an awkward conversation that involved coming out to each other, but then all logic flies out of the window as he releases a pitiful whine against Ryoken’s closed mouth. Kissing back and shivering at the soft, wet slide of their lips, opening up his lips with enthusiasm, almost moaning at the tongue that slips inside his mouth. He suddenly feels too warm and too cold at the same time, as Ryoken’s mouth gets acquainted with his own and he hears the irregularity of their breathing, feels him pressing even closer and moaning loudly at Ryoken’s knee against his crotch.

They are definitely getting too worked up for a kiss that’s barely been going on for two seconds, but he guesses that’s what pent up sexual tension does to you. Ryoken practically growls in response to his moan; a guttural sound that makes Yusaku’s legs shake and his heart skip a beat as he lets go of one of his wrists to grab his chin and force him to tilt his head up slightly, giving him easier access. He sucks on Yusaku’s bottom lip, pulling back for a second to take in a sharp breath that allows him to catch his gaze, take a look at his heavy eyelids and glazed over eyes. It makes a trill go down Yusaku’s spine, to realize that he’s not the only one falling into an endless pit of desire in a completely willing matter in so little time. So, without any hesitation, Yusaku grinds his hips against Ryoken’s while maintaining eye contact, and cherishes the low moan that escapes his rival as their centers rub against each other.

Not even giving him even a moment to breathe, Ryoken dives into Yusaku’s mouth again, forcing his lips open and running his tongue over the roof of his mouth teasingly, making Yusaku grab at his hair with his free hand, returning the favor by sucking on that very same tongue. Yusaku resents the fact that as quickly as his arousal comes, Link VRAINS is doing everything in its power to keep his avatar from actually displaying it. Which means that when Ryoken drops his hand from his chin to palm Yusaku through his sweatpants, he probably feels nothing, but Yusaku _does_ , bucking up with a whine and pulling on Ryoken’s hair, trying to get him even closer, as if that were even _possible_ , considering how they’re sucking on each other’s faces like their world depends on it.

With a frustrated whine, Yusaku brings his own hand to his pants to pull them down, Ryoken leaning back to help him and getting his hand right in, under his avatar underwear, to grab at what probably feels like his soft dick, but it’s actual _heaven_ for him and he proves it by bucking up almost violently, whimpering. If ever asked why he has mods to make his avatar have an actual dick, Yusaku would claim it was an accident when downloading anti-anti-cursing mods, but it’s actually there as a prank from Ai he never got rid of, which he’s now very, _very_ grateful for. Ryoken works him almost punishingly slow, pumping him like they have all the time in the world— and they don’t, they _really_ don’t since those players, including _Shima_ , are probably two steps away from finding them _in fraganti._ But the thought of someone walking in on them, while he’s at the mercy of his rival who not that long ago was his enemy but who’s also his special person, his moans echoing across the walls of the sewers and his hands rendered useless by the strength of his desire and the firm press of Ryoken’s body against him actually sends a shiver down his spine, his hips bucking and rolling into the fist around him more roughly.

At some point they stopped kissing, which means they’re just breathing into each other’s space while looking down at Ryoken’s hand working him. It’s a bizarre sight, because while the mods make it so this dick resembles his own from tip to base, the mods he _doesn’t_ have make it look like he’s still soft. Ryoken must know this is not the case in real life, because he doesn’t hesitate once during this whole debacle and he even looks impossibly turned on by it; his breathing extremely loud against Yusaku, drowning out the chiming of those infuriating DM’s. Groaning, Yusaku leans in to steal another kiss, feeling dangerously close to the edge, and Ryoken meets him gladly, biting playfully at his lips and then trailing more down his neck, sucking on his skin harshly, making Yusaku mourn the fact that he’s not going to be able to look at them in the mirror because he’s in Link VRAINS instead of the real world.

Yusaku allows himself to imagine they’re actually in his apartment, and instead of Ryoken pumping him with his hand against a wall he’s kneeling down between his legs on his bed; working a finger into him slowly and teasingly, chuckling darkly at Yusaku’s moans. The mental image makes him throw his head back in frustration, closing his eyes, needing to come with all his being, being so close and yet so, _so far—_

“You’re gonna come for me, Yusaku?” Ryoken suddenly asks, the first words spoken since he asked him to trust him, and it makes him whine and grab at his hair again. Ryoken’s grip on him tightens. “You’re gonna come just for me, log out to find yourself wet just from my hand?”

The words make something inside Yusaku break, and he barely registers the sound of scandalized screams and footsteps running away over that of his own breathy, desperate moan. “Yes, _yees, Ryoken, please—”_

“Then do it, Yusaku,” he orders, squeezing him with such possessiveness that it makes Yusaku scramble to hold on to something, his orgasm hitting him like he just ran face first into a wall with his D-Board, his whole body tensing and a series of broken whimpers escaping his lips. Ryoken keeps working him through all of it, whispering nonsense in his ear and making sure to drag it out until Yusaku has to wrap an arm around his shoulder to keep himself upright, his legs jelly underneath him.

When it’s over and Yusaku recovers some of his consciousness, he is vaguely aware that Ryoken is holding him with both of his arms now, the only sounds in the sewers are those of their labored breathing and the data bank rushing somewhere. Leaning closer to him, Yusaku runs his hand down his chest until he reaches his pants and presses firmly against the bulge he finds there, swallowing at Ryoken’s shiver. It seems that someone _else_ did have all the right mods.

Looking up to meet his darkened eyes, Yusaku has an idea: “How would you like a blowjob?”

“Oh, God, please,” Ryoken rushes out in one breath, his hips bucking against Yusaku’s hand. With a shiver, Yusaku falls down to his knees and starts to work Ryoken’s zipper open, his hands shaking, Ryoken’s hand on his hair—

His world goes black.

For a second, Yusaku thinks that something terrible happened. Like Lighting taking advantage of their vulnerable position to infect them with a virus or something, but then he takes in the cold air brushing across his hair, the wetness of his pants, the realistic softness of his socks, and realizes his eyes are just closed. Opening them slowly, Yusaku finds himself in the VR room in his apartment, come dripping down his leg and, more importantly, Ai screaming in his ear.

“...was there for the whole thing you absolute dumbass! You completely forgot about me!” He cries, hiding his face in his hands, and Yusaku feels panic rising inside him. “I’m traumatized for life! I know I joke about you two being my parents and all _but—”_

“Ai, I need you to tell me who logged me out,” Yusaku interrupts, voice frantic. Ryoken wasn’t even looking at his screen, hell, the program wasn’t even _running_ anymore, he knew that, so it couldn’t have been him.

“It was the hotdog man, you idiot! Who else!?” Ai shrieks, making Yusaku wince. “While you two got freaky down in those sewers I actually contacted him!”

Yusaku takes a second to process this, determines everything is fine, and then runs out of the room to grab his phone, looking for a contact and hitting the call button with such aggressiveness he almost drops it entirely, bringing it up to his ear. The phone rings three times before there’s an answer, and Yusaku is so, _so_ relieved he almost tears up.

“Yusaku!?” Ryoken asks, his voice urgent, and there’s other sounds coming from the phone that indicate he’s moving, and fast. “Everything is fine on your end?”

“Kusanagi-san logged me out,” he explains quickly, taking off his pants. Ai screams in horror, but Yusaku will take care of him later by locking him under one of his kitchen cupboards with Roboppy. “You’re coming over?”

Ryoken scoffs incredulously. “Of course.”

Yusaku swallows, and then, voice trembling: “Bring lube and condoms.”

Ryoken groans in his ear. There’s silence for a few seconds, and then Ryoken sighs, a grin in his voice. “Check your DM’s.”

Ryoken hangs up. So, confused, Yusaku brings his Duel Disk up, ignoring Ai’s whining, to check his mailbox, eyebrows raising at finding a DM from Revolver. Opening it, Yusaku stares at the pictures of flowers, and then, swallowing, uses his phone to google their meaning. Coming across a Wikipedia article, Yusaku looks at the flowers and then at their meaning, feeling his heart beating wildly in his chest.

Ambrosia, _love is reciprocated_. Arbutus, _you’re the only one I love_. Red and white carnations, _passion and faithfulness_. Lavender, _devotion_. Coriander, _lust_. Yusaku won’t even question how Ryoken found such specific flowers, thinking that perhaps Spectre might have had a hand in it, but this looks planned. There’s no way that Ryoken had the time to look for these flowers and their meaning, and then send him the pictures before Yusaku called him.

Thinking back to the sewers, Yusaku remembers that one odd comment he made: _“Perhaps you haven’t looked deeply enough.”_

The look in his eyes when he said that— Yusaku almost chokes as he realizes this _was planned._ Shaking his head in disbelief he takes off his Duel Disk, ignoring whatever Ai’s trying to say to him, a soft, shy grin taking over his lips.

 _Well,_ Yusaku thinks, _perhaps Valentine’s Day is not that bad._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 💕💕💕💖💖


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